Éléphant
Bouchra Ouizguen
Bouchra Ouizguen is considered a pioneer of contemporary Moroccan dance. In her new work “Éléphant”, she continues her previous artistic explorations of traditional singing techniques, rituals and the popular repertoire of the Marrakech region, and at the same time, in a time when traditions are threatening to disappear, she asks what has been passed on orally over several generations and has become collective practice. Accompanied by musicians from southern Morocco, Bouchra Ouizguen has thus created a choreography in which movements and sound intertwine and can be experienced physically, oscillating between strength and fragility.
Based in Marrakech, Bouchra Ouizguen cultivates a personal, unique, and inspired form of choreographic expression, far from the codes of Western contemporary dance. For over a decade, she has been collaborating with women with a charismatic presence and powerful, bewitching singing voices, who perform at traditional festivals. As folk artists from southern Morocco, embodying a part of the country’s cultural heritage, they carry within them a form of joyful freedom that contrasts with society’s gender, cultural and racial prejudices, and perhaps not only in Morocco. By inviting them onto the contemporary dance scene, Ouizguen is bringing together past and present, tradition and modernity. Through the sharing of their respective experiences as women and artists, the choreographer forms an alliance with them in order to put the difference to the test – but without violence, through gaiety, complicity and generous attention to human dignity.
Artistic Direction: Bouchra Ouizguen
Dancers and singers: Milouda El Maataoui, Bouchra Ouizguen, Halima Sahmoud, Joséphine Tilloy,
Lighting design: Sylvie Mélis
Sound engineer: Chloé Barbe
Administration and production: Mylène Gaillon
